By the time the catch was taken, the centre of gravity had shifted completely, and what followed was one of the greatest short-leg catches.

Fielding at forward short-leg in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle, Rohit Sharma pulled off a stunner off Ravichandran Ashwin to dismiss a set Angelo Mathews. Abhishek Mukherjee explains why Rohit’s catch should go down as one of the very best the sport has seen. Live Updates: India vs Sri Lanka, 1st Test at Galle, Day 1

However, this has not necessarily improved the quality of the specialised fielding positions every captain needs to back his bowlers with: slip and bat-pad catchers. The men who man the 30-yard circle or the fence in the shorter formats do not necessarily become quality close-in catchers.

The Indians had a reason to be happy when KL Rahul took an excellent reflex catch off Ravichandran Ashwin to dismiss Kumar Sangakkara cheaply. But the catch Rohit Sharma pulled off to dismiss Angelo Mathews was of the quality cricket has not seen for a long, long time.

Let us look at the catch carefully. Ashwin tossed the ball on off-stump. Mathews, well set by then, tried to flick, perhaps to the left of Rohit at forward short-leg. He did not time it, the ball probably brushed his pad, and the ball went up in the air above Rohit’s head, to his right.

Rohit managed to push the ball back with both hands, which was incredible (try doing it if the ball passes close to your face and crosses you, and you will realise what I am talking about). Not only did he manage to touch it, he pushed it back towards the direction of the pitch.

Then Rohit turned around, to some extent, realised that he had pushed the ball to a place where he could actually reach it on the rebound. So he made a lunge for it. This also meant a change in centre of gravity for him (slow-motion camera will overestimate the time he got to react). Live Scorecard: India vs Sri Lanka 2015, 1st Test at Galle, Day 1

The ball, unfortunately, was beyond his reach — well, almost. Since this was Rohit, he was acrobatic enough to reach it, using his right foot as fulcrum. By the time the catch was taken, the centre of gravity had shifted completely, and what followed was one of the greatest short-leg catches the world has seen.

(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here.)

First Published on August 12, 2015 3:37 PM ISTLast updated on August 14, 2015 4:28 PM IST